Crooked Trump and His Unsecure Cell Phone

Trump has raged endlessly about the security risks associated with Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal server, which is part of why he took to calling her “crooked Hillary.” That is interesting in light of this:

President Donald Trump is increasingly relying on his personal cell phone to contact outside advisers, multiple sources inside and outside the White House told CNN, as Trump returns to the free-wheeling mode of operation that characterized the earliest days of his administration…

Mary McCord, who used to head the Justice Department’s national security division, says smartphones are notorious for their security vulnerabilities.

“Because the smartphones of high-level government officials — including the President — are obvious targets for foreign intelligence services, the government goes to significant effort to ensure that government-issued smartphones are constantly updated to address security vulnerabilities,” she said. “Use of personal smartphones, which may not have all of the security features of government-issued smartphones or be regularly updated to address newly discovered vulnerabilities, present an obvious potential security risk.”

The problem, of course, is that we have a president who is impervious to shame and therefore has no qualms with being completely hypocritical. In his mind, the “rules” apply to everyone else, but not to him. This is simply one example among hundreds we’ve seen over the last couple of years.

Those hundreds of examples also tell us why Trump will never change. Here’s what Tony Schwartz wrote about that.

This narrow, defensive outlook took hold at a very early age, and it never evolved. “When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now,” he told a recent biographer, “I’m basically the same.” His development essentially ended in early childhood…

Trump was equally clear with me that he didn’t value — nor even necessarily recognize — the qualities that tend to emerge as people grow more secure, such as empathy, generosity, reflectiveness, the capacity to delay gratification or, above all, a conscience, an inner sense of right and wrong. Trump simply didn’t traffic in emotions or interest in others. The life he lived was all transactional, all the time. Having never expanded his emotional, intellectual or moral universe, he has his story down, and he’s sticking to it.

When I say that Trump is acting like a two-year-old, from a developmental perspective, I’m not necessarily speaking metaphorically.

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